ent in that narrow space and in that bad light; for,
though so small below, the houses rose high, and the street being so
narrow the sunshine rarely penetrated into it.

But mean as a metropolitan shopman might have thought the spot, the
business done there was large, and, more than that, it was genuine. The
trade of a country market-town, especially when that market-town, like
Woolbury, dates from the earliest days of English history, is hereditary.
It flows to the same store and to the same shop year after year,
generation after generation, century after century. The farmer who walks
into the saddler's here goes in because his father went there before him.
His father went in because his father dealt there, and so on farther back
than memory can trace. It might almost be said that whole villages go to
particular shops. You may see the agricultural labourers' wives, for
instance, on a Saturday leave the village in a bevy of ten or a dozen, and
all march in to the same tradesman. Of course in these latter days
speculative men and 'co-operative' prices, industriously placarded, have
sapped and undermined this old-fashioned system. Yet even now it retains
sufficient hold to be a marked feature of country life. To the through
traffic, therefore, had to be added the steady flow of customers to the
shops.

On a market-day like this there is, of course, the incessant entry and
exit of carts, waggons, traps, gigs, four-wheels, and a large number of
private carriages. The number of private carriages is, indeed, very
remarkable, as also the succession of gentlemen on thoroughbred horses--a
proof of the number of resident gentry in the neighbourhood, and of its
general prosperity. Cart-horses furbished up for sale, with straw-bound
tails and glistening skins; 'baaing' flocks of sheep; squeaking pigs;
bullocks with their heads held ominously low, some going, some returning,
from the auction yard; shouting drovers; lads rushing hither and thither;
dogs barking; everything and everybody crushing, jostling, pushing through
the narrow street. An old shepherd, who has done his master's business,
comes along the pavement, trudging thoughtful and slow, with ashen staff.
One hand is in his pocket, the elbow of the arm projecting; he is feeling
a fourpenny-piece, and deliberating at which 'tap' he shall spend it. He
fills up the entire pavement, and stolidly plods on, turning ladies and
all into the roadway; not from intentional rudeness, b